Nowhere to Hide
by People Person I'm Not
Summary: Reid knows the effects of drugs. Yet he can't stop using. He tries so hard to hide it from his team, but are his efforts enough? (T for drug use and possible language)
1. Chapter 1

**addict **_noun_ A person who is addicted to a particular substance, typically an illegal drug.

**addicted **_adjective _Physically and mentally dependent on a particular substance

**Dilaudid **_noun _Brand name for a strong opioid drug, called hydromorphine. Prescribed for severe pain. When used intravenously, provides a very intense, powerful rush comparable to heroin. Very valuable to heroin users and, to a lesser extent, opiate users in general.

* * *

Dr. Spencer Reid knew every effect of drugs. He had seen them often enough in the field, in the wear and tear on the bodies he had seen as an FBI agent, on the killers he caught. He knew the dangers of being addicted, the physical and psychological effects. He knew drug use would ruin his body and mind. He knew it would get him kicked out of the FBI, away from the career he loved so much, with no chance of redemption, of another career. And yet he couldn't stop using the drugs.

He knew he was addicted. He knew he should be strong enough to stop. But he couldn't. He loved the rush. He loved how it cleared his always-racing mind. He had always loathed Sherlock Holmes' drug problem—one of the few things he disliked about the man, along with his insistence that he used deductive reasoning when it was clearly inductive—but now it made sense. Holmes, much like Reid himself, had a non-stop mind. The drugs made it stop, enough to let him rest. That was what Reid was addicted to, even more than the high.

His mind was his greatest asset, and yet he was tearing it to pieces with a stupid drug. He was revolted and disgusted, yet he continued.

The hardest part was hiding the whole thing from his team. It was hard to hide anything from profilers, and Reid took a particular thrill from outsmarting them, from acting normal and hiding the addiction for another day. He hated being an addict, but at the same time he loved it.

He had never wanted the drugs in the first place. Tobias Henkel had given them to him, with good intentions, intending to ease the pain caused by "Charles" and "Rafael." Reid had fought against it, but it was no use. Tobias had given Reid Dilaudid, the drug he himself was addicted to, and had gotten the FBI agent hooked.

Dilaudid. It was, in one form, a prescription painkiller. That made it all the more repulsive to Reid. He was like a teenager, hooked on prescriptions. But this was different. He took is intravenously, "shooting up," a term he hated but knew to be true. Luckily he had always preferred long sleeves—they covered the marks of the needle.

He had tried, more than once, to get off the drug. But he wasn't strong enough. It was a vicious cycle.


	2. Chapter 2

**Thought I should mention…there is going to be a very close Morgan/Reid friendship in this, but it is not slash. I have nothing against MoReid slash (one of my all-time favorite CM fics is a slashfic set right after Henkel and dealing with the whole drug thing—**_**Feed the Fire **_**Within by NatNazzy if you're interested; it's brilliant), but it doesn't feel right for this story, and I don't think I can write it well. Otherwise, thank you to my reviewers QuirkyRevelations, OblivyChan, and NatNazzy, and enjoy the chapter!**

* * *

Reid threw his things in his room, exhausted and shaking. He had been with his team for several hours, first at the BAU, then on the jet, then at the police station starting on their new case. His body was starting to enter withdrawal, and he needed his fix. He desperately dug in his bag, fumbling for a vial and a needle.

Just as he found his prize, there was a knock on the door. Muffling a curse, he dropped the things and went to answer the knock.

Morgan stood there, bags in his hands. The delicious scent of Chinese wafted from them.

"Hey, kid," he said. "I got food, and there's a game on. Want to sack out and watch with me?"

Reid sighed. He knew that Morgan was trying to be friendly, even though he knew Reid was not a huge sports fan (to be perfectly honest, he hadn't even the slightest idea which sport Morgan was referring to). Trying to get close to Reid, to show his friendship and support, after what had happened with Tobias Henkel. He couldn't really turn Morgan down, not without looking suspicious, so he moved aside to let his coworker in.

Morgan collapsed on the couch, and started setting out the food. Reid perched agitatedly on his bed, hands folded in his lap to hide their shaking. He kept himself from glancing longingly at his bag, feeling the pull of the Dilaudid stashed carefully in the bottom. He didn't want to give Morgan any reason to look through that bag, and while he didn't think the other profiler would, it was best to take no chances.

"Hey, Reid, you all right, man?" Morgan asked concernedly, the question the whole team had been asking Reid at every tiny sign anything was not perfectly fine with their genius. They were alternating between treating him like the strongest person they knew and like a delicate glass figurine that could break at the slightest misstep. After all, they had seen a good deal—but not all—of what had gone on in that little shack in Georgia.

"Uh…yeah," Reid stuttered. "Yeah, I'm fine. Just, um, tired. I haven't been sleeping well." It wasn't technically a lie. He had not gotten a full, unbroken night's sleep since he had been found in those woods, digging his own grave. Nightmares had plagued him, and he woke often in a cold sweat, remembering what had happened to him at the hands of Tobias, Charles, and Rafael. Often Dilaudid was the only things that allowed him to calm back down again.

Morgan's sharp gaze softened. "I get it, kid. You went through things out there that no one should have had to go through. Nightmares are to be expected." He smiled at Reid, the bright smile he reserved only for his closest friends, and grabbed the remote. Flicking through the channels, he reached ESPN. "Mets versus Phillies."

Baseball, then. Reid breathed a sigh of relief. He was still not a fan, but baseball made more sense to him then football or any other sport. It was more straightforward—a player crossed home plate, his team got a point. No weird things that are worth more or less points than others. He could handle baseball. Even, presumably, in his current state.

Reid grabbed the container of pork fried rice—one of his favorites—and nearly dropped it due to the extreme shaking of his hands.

Morgan looked up concern. "What was that, Reid?"

"Nothing," Reid lied, not very convincingly. Morgan looked dubious, but dropped the topic, deciding to give Reid the benefit of the doubt.

Reid served himself—carefully, this time—and watched the game, eating slowly. Morgan reacted to event happening on the screen, but clearly did not expect Reid to—he never did.

Finally, _finally_, the game ended, and Morgan left, taking the leftover Chinese and empty cartons with him. Reid could have cried in relief. He all but ran to his bag as soon as Morgan was gone, digging out the drugs he so desperately craved.

Turning his tie into a makeshift tourniquet, he was finally able to get some measure of relief. He despised himself for it, but it felt so, so good. Better than any other stress reliever.

After changing into an oversized Cal Tech t-shirt and sweatpants, Reid crawled into his bed and rode out the high, then fell asleep, back into the waiting arms of his nightmares.


	3. Chapter 3

**Whoo! Next chapter! I am so glad I had time for this...marching band has eaten my life :P Also, I kind get Reid's problem...much like him, I am addicted to a self-destructive behavior... Anyway, thanks to songwriterforlife99, OblivyChan, NickyLk, QuirkyRevelations, and NatNazzy for their kind reviews!**

* * *

Reid walked into the police station, cup of coffee in his hand. It was their first full day on the case, and he was not exactly looking forward to it. He had gotten less than three hours of sleep, plagued by nightmares as he was, and he wanted nothing less than to be at work. He loved the job, but he needed rest.

JJ had already started setting up a board with pictures of all the victims on it, along with some basic biographical information on each.

"Hey, Spence," JJ called cheerfully, and Reid raised a hand in greeting. "I have locations and stuff for you. Hotch said to start on a geographic profile. Map's over there." She pointed to a bulletin board with a detailed map of the area tacked to it, and handed Reid the information.

As Reid worked, the rest of the team filtered in, also carrying their coffee. By the time they were all there, Reid was basically done with the geographic profile. The team gathered around the table, looking at both JJ's victim board and Reid's map. Gideon tapped his pen absentmindedly, a tick the team was used to. But right now every little noise was drilling into Reid's head.

"Can you _stop_, Gideon?" Reid snapped, and Gideon, looking surprised, stopped tapping his pen. The rest of the team, also surprised, stared at Reid. The soft spoken genius never yelled or snapped at anyone.

"You okay, Reid?" Prentiss asked softly.

"I'm _fine_," Reid retorted. "Do you all need to keep asking that? I'm not made of glass."

"I wasn't suggesting that you are," Prentiss replied. "You're just acting odd, and I was wondering if you were okay."

"You've known me for a few months. How do you know I'm acting odd?"

Hotch stood up. "We can't work on this case if we can't even work together. Reid, I don't know what's going on with you, but you need to calm down. Prentiss was only trying to help."

Reid crossed his arms huffily, looking as if he were biting back an irritable remark. Hotch gave him a stern look, and Reid took a deep breath and relaxed, at least a little. "I'm sorry," he muttered.

"Okay," JJ said, trying to bring the team back on track. "All of our victims were well off, successful. Businessmen and women, teachers, a cop. Thus far there are no linking factors—while they were all successful, it was not in the same field. The ME says they should have results for us soon."

"Morgan and Reid will go talk to the ME," Hotch said. "See what they have to say, determine if there is anything linking the victims. JJ, you and Jason will go to the most recent scene, and Prentiss and I will talk to witnesses and family members."

* * *

"You sure you're okay, kid?" Morgan asked, glancing over at Reid as he drove. "You were acting weird last night, too, and don't try and play the 'you don't know me' card on me. I've known you for long enough to know something's not right."

Reid decided on a safe lie, or partial one. "It's just stuff from Henkel. Nightmares. I don't sleep much."

Morgan nodded. "You need to try and sleep, though. You have some serious bags under your eyes, and I don't need to be a profiler to tell it's affecting your work. Since I _am_ a profiler, though, I could tell you more."

"Don't," Reid said softly. "I already know. You don't need to remind me."

Morgan, respecting Reid's privacy, nodded and shut up.

* * *

When they reached the ME's office, Morgan and Reid met with the man in charge of examining the bodies.

"As far as we could tell, there was only one linking factor," he told the agents. When they heard what it was, they nodded, and hurried back to talk to the rest of the team.

* * *

"I think I know why it was these people targeted," Morgan announced. "They had only one linking factor. They may have been very successful, but they were also regular drug users. I don't mean they smoked or drank. I mean serious stuff. Heroin, cocaine, all that. They hid it well, but somehow our UNSUB knew. That's probably why he targeted them. He didn't like that they seemed so perfect, yet had so dark a secret."

"You don't often see people of this class as addicts," Prentiss added. "They must have been incredibly secure, to be able to be drug users and still maintain this level of living."

"Wonder how they got into this stuff, though," JJ said. "Usually, once you start using your life goes on a downward spiral, fast. They couldn't have started as teens—they would have never made it to this level."

Reid spoke up. "71 percent of illegal drug users are actually employed. Maybe not at this standard, but they are. They could have started for any reason. Stress, an accident, curiosity, anything. Once they started using, they couldn't stop. Life became a cycle, merely surviving from one fix to the next."

The team nodded, and Reid bit his lip. That had been a mistake. He had given away far too much information, and yet, through some stroke of ridiculous luck, it seemed as if his team wasn't going to question what he knew about living with a drug addiction. Sheer luck.

"Marijuana is the most commonly used illegal drug," he added. "I'm not sure how many of that 71 percent were marijuana users, and how many used other, harder substances. The stuff our victims used."

_The stuff I use._


	4. Chapter 4

**This is a filler chapter, and not great. Just a warning. As usual, thanks to my reviewers (QuirkyRevelations and NatNazzy)! Nazzy, I thought about it...and that maight just happen after all ;)**

* * *

Reid paced the floor of his hotel room, incredibly nervous. The whole drug aspect of the case was making him incredibly nervous, as he himself was in the same situation as those people that the UNSUB had targeted. He was scared that he would find himself a victim, but almost more scared that his team would question why he knew so much about drug use. That his team would find out he was also an addict.

He went for his bag, desperate, as usual, for a fix. The stress that the case was causing was leading him to use more and more often, and although he despised himself for it, he couldn't stop.

Drawing out the needle and small vial of Dilaudid, he rolled up his sleeve. After preparing the drugs, Reid injected himself in the crook of his elbow. He waited for the rush, but it didn't come. Frowning, he waited some more, but the rush still never arrived. Desperate for relief, he added more Dilaudid to the needle and tried again. Finally, that which he craved arrived, after more Dilaudid than he had ever used before. He relaxed on his bed, riding the high as it crashed through his body. Then, as it subsided, he fell asleep.

Reid awoke after less than an hour, stomach cramping. Running to the bathroom, he barely made it before he vomited. He knew he was crashing, and felt it, but he had never crashed this hard before.

As soon as the contents of his stomach were gone and he had cleaned up, Reid knelt on the floor, head against the cool porcelain of the bath tub. Letting his mind work as best as it could, which was a mere fraction of that which it could normally do, he tried to figure out what had happened.

It took several minutes for him to go through the facts he knew about drug addiction. Finally, he reached one that seemed perfectly likely.

He knew that the body adjusted to drugs, and that over time it took more and more drugs to achieve the desired high. He had used more Dilaudid than he normally did, and that was why he was crashing so hard. He was revolted with himself. He wanted so desperately to get clean, but instead he used more drugs than he did normally.

Reid sat there for the better part of an hour, until he felt well enough to drag himself back to bed. It was late, and he needed sleep. Sleep to make his brain function well enough to work on the case. Otherwise his team would realize something was wrong, and he couldn't have that. They were already suspicious enough, especially with the way he had treated Gideon and Prentiss, and he couldn't possibly make that any worse.

Done with the day, he curled up uncomfortably and fell asleep.

* * *

The next morning was no better. Reid had a pounding headache, and nothing, including the drug itself, would make that headache dissipate. He was miserable, wanting nothing more than to just curl up in bed with all the curtains drawn and the lights off. But he had to go into work.

Groaning, Reid managed to stand, albeit shakily. He dragged himself to the bathroom, turning the shower on cold, hoping it would help wake him up. He jumped out of the shower two minutes later, teeth chattering. His head was still pounding, but at least he was awake. Wrapping a towel around his waist, he headed out into the room proper to search through his go bag for something to wear.

Five minutes later he was heading out of his room, hair still damp, but presentable in dress pants, shirt, sweater, and tie. Hopefully, no one would realize how awful he was feeling.

When he reached the police station, he was greeted by the set faces of those of the cops and his team who were already there. "There's been a new body found," Hotch said. "Thirty-three-year-old Elizabeth McNally. She was sexually assaulted-his MO's changed. This is the first that any of the victims have shown any sign of assault."

"That's a significant change," Morgan said. "Adding a sexual element to his ritual. Considering the number of victims who were female, it's not just a random choice."

"Drugs?" Reid asked.

"We're still waiting for the toxicology report from the ME, but it's likely," Hotch said.

JJ broke in. "And he's escalating. He had a pretty constant time range between kills before, but he's cut his cooling off period almost in half."

"That means we should be on the lookout for another attack within a week," Reid replied.

"I'll tell the police to be on the lookout," Hotch said. "We can't put these people under protection, since they're not the type who would ever admit to an addiction. JJ, hold a press conference, make sure people know what's out there. This doesn't seem like the type of UNSUB to get off on the attention, so it's worth the risk."

Reid took a deep breath. He knew he would have to be alert, and be very, very careful not to reveal himself.


End file.
